With the new year, new priorities tend to emerge, as leaders turn their attention to making the new calendar year outperform the departing year in every way.

A year’s worth of blank calendar pages often prompts us to make changes for the better.

Leadership and corporate culture cannot be separated, because when the two work together, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. Likewise, when leadership is separate and apart from culture, neither can be expected to excel.

Here are four key leadership coaching and culture trends for 2019 where leading companies are focusing their attention and efforts, and with good reason. Without excellence in both leadership and culture, businesses won’t reach peak performance.

1. Emphasis on Continuous Learning

“Upskilling,” “retraining,” and “professional development” are just a few of the terms that refer to continued career-related learning. And it isn’t just about learning a new programming language or software package. Continuous learning must embrace soft as well as hard skills because communication and emotional intelligence will be if anything, more important in a corporate world that embraces automation. Companies that offer learning opportunities and reward employees for using them are companies that will have better employee retention, engagement, and satisfaction.

2. Increased Focus on Quality of Culture

You may have heard the Peter Drucker quote that says, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This isn’t to say that strategy isn’t important, because it is. But without an empowering culture as a foundation, strategy won’t be carried out as well as it could be. Improving the quality of culture in the workplace requires first describing the culture honestly as it is, and then planning practical and positive ways to improve it. Without the stories, organizational structures, and practices that make up a company culture, a strategy has little ground on which to gain traction.

Culture lays the groundwork for positive execution of strategy.

3. Agility in Leadership

Agility is possible in large enterprises, as long as these organizations recognize the evidence showing that smaller, multi-disciplinary teams respond more swiftly to rapidly changing conditions. But gaining agility requires more than stating the value of the agile culture. Leaders must remove the needless layers of complexity that slow progress, and they must empower employees at all levels to make informed decisions appropriate to their responsibilities. Finally, they must recognize situations where agility triumphs, to maintain momentum and avoid slipping back into less agile practices.

4. Focus on Emerging Leaders

The time to focus on emerging leaders is long before their leadership services are required. This sometimes involves working with people who may have previously been overlooked because of their background or different life experiences compared to existing leaders. Leadership development shouldn’t start when someone is promoted to a leadership position, but well before that time. Leadership succession planning is critical to every organization. Working with emerging leaders and offering leadership coaching to new leaders are two ways they can ensure the best leadership succession results.

As companies prepare for a new year, they may determine that leadership coaching plays an important role in all four of these trends. After all, leadership coaching is a form of continuous learning, it helps improve corporate culture, poises leaders for better responsiveness and agility, and helps emerging leaders become effective leaders. If you’re ready to make the coming year the best personally and professionally, contact me for more information on my executive coaching services.

The public sector doesn’t respond to the same stakeholders that private businesses do. Stakeholders in the public sector are the community at large, rather than business owners or shareholders.

Stakeholders of every kind want strong performance from the organizations in which they’re invested.

So simply stating that every public sector entity should be “run like a business” oversimplifies the situation. But that doesn’t mean that public entities have nothing to learn from business. If nothing else, responding to demands as businesses must do, and employing the technology and leadership to make that happen make sense for libraries, public hospitals, and other government organizations.

Executive coaching, too, has a place in the public sector. The stakeholders may be different, but the need for strong leadership is just as evident in the public sector as in the private sector. Making the case for executive coaching may be more difficult for public entities, but an increasing number of case studies demonstrate that executive coaching can have positive effects throughout a public organization.

Results of Coaching Efforts in the Public Sector

Effective leaders understand the importance of a “coaching culture” throughout their organization because it helps solidify skills, build confidence, and engage employees effectively. A McKinsey survey found that respondents in the public sector were likely to disagree with the statement that “managers are effective at coaching employees.” Could they benefit from coaching? Absolutely.

One European public sector service agency addressed this issue by establishing a leadership coaching module with step-by-step guidelines on specific tasks. For example, the module taught how to conduct successful performance dialogues and offered hands-on role-playing activities to solidify skills learned. Performance of projects led by those who participated in the leadership coaching modules improved significantly compared to the performance of projects led by others.

A public hospital in Queenstown, South Africa initiated a four-month project offering mentoring and coaching workshops and emphasizing the importance of mentoring and coaching in the organization. In a post-project survey, respondents unanimously agreed that the program was beneficial, and that mentoring and coaching improved performance and had far-reaching positive effects on the organization as a whole.

The coaching culture benefits public sector organizations just as much as private sector organizations.

Building Skills for Success Just as Important on Budget-Driven Organizations

Public sector organizations are budget-driven rather than profit-driven, so they respond to different pressures than business enterprises do. But skills for success are just as necessary in the public sector. Public entities can suffer just as significantly from disengaged employees, incompetent leadership, and poor morale as private enterprises do.

Developing the leadership skills to effectively engage employees, achieve goals, and promote the organization’s mission makes sense for organizations in the public sector, and executive coaching can be an outstanding way for public sector leaders to do this.

Executive Coaching for Women in the Public Sector

Women in the public sector advance into leadership roles more easily than they do in the private sector. The reasons behind this are complex, but one key issue is a relative lack of female mentors and guides in the public sector. Executive coaching of women in the public sector can be a tremendously valuable way to assist these leaders in fully developing their skills and supporting them in their missions. And for female executives in the public sector who later take private sector jobs, the benefits of executive coaching are bound to carry over, benefiting those private enterprises as well.

Budgeting for executive coaching in the public sector is not as easy as it is in private enterprises, because the public wants every tax dollar to be spent to its best advantage. It may not be easy to convince public stakeholders that executive coaching is a good investment, but studies are showing that it is. For public institutions that don’t have access to the funds for one-on-one executive coaching, projects where online coaching modules are used show promise. After all, the skills for success in private enterprise – confidence, self-awareness, and outstanding skills – are essential to the success of public sector entities too.

Whether you work in the public or private sector, I invite you to check out my books as well as well as my speaking and leadership training services. The importance of strong leadership and outstanding culture is universal, whether you’re serving shareholders or an entire community.

The concept of coaching can be considered from countless different angles, and what the process actually involves may vary significantly from case to case.

Whatever the context, coaching is about helping people improve their performance.

Verbs associated with the umbrella term “coaching” include:

Instruct

Tutor

Teach

Train

Educate

Prepare

Mentor

Direct

and many more. And yet, none of those terms is exactly synonymous with coaching. If you’ve ever witnessed a good coach in action, you have probably seen many of those verbs being demonstrated. Coaches may educate as to why the team uses the shotgun formation, or they may prepare by sharing statistics about an opposing team. A coach may help train her client to access or strengthen parts of her vocal register, or mentor someone younger so they’re better prepared for challenges.

Coaching in business is analogous to coaching in sports, music, dialect, or other endeavors, in that it involves a custom blend of techniques and exercises that are ultimately designed to improve performance in ways that can be measured. The very popularity of the concept of coaching, unfortunately, has led to people offering executive coaching services despite lack of experience, because many businesses are hungry for the important services coaches provide. It’s important to understand how coaching in business works, and also how it doesn’t work.

History of Coaching in General and Coaching in Business

If you trace the history of the term “coaching,” you find that it, naturally, comes from the word “coach,” which originally referred to the kind of four-wheeled, covered carriage designed to get people from point A to point B. Modern coaching, in many ways, is a type of conveyance, because it is designed to help clients get from where they are now to a place where they perform better.

Use of the term “coach” in the sense of an “instructor” or “trainer” dates to the early 19th century when it was a slang term used by Oxford University students who worked with private tutors. Coaching as a sports term dates to around 1860.

So you see, “coaching,” though we tend to think of it primarily in athletic contexts, actually started out in an academic context, so it’s not that big a stretch to think of coaching as being absolutely fitting in a business context. It wasn’t until the 1970s, however, that companies in the United States began to realize the amazing potential of coaching in business, because of its combination of one-on-one conversation and its focus on measurable performance.

How Coaching Works in Theory

The coach-client relationship is more egalitarian than the teacher-pupil relationship. Solution and goal-attainment are the goals in both the coach-client relationship and the teacher-pupil relationship, but how those goals are achieved differ. The executive or corporate leader doesn’t need to be trained in how to do their job, but quite often they could benefit from learning new and different ways to perform better, deal with challenges, and help the organization as a whole work better.

Coaching is designed to use positive resources like optimism and resilience. If you ever had a great coach when playing sports as a child, you probably remember that coach because of their gift for simultaneous correction and encouragement. A great coach will show you not only how to hold the bat correctly, but why you’ll get better results that way. And then when you get that first strong hit using your newly learned technique, your coach will be the first one to cheer you on.

The same is true with coaching in business. Coaches aren’t there to coddle executives, but to help them recognize gaps in their performance, develop ways to bridge those gaps, and offer encouragement when new and effective techniques are learned and demonstrated.

How Coaching Works in Practice

After an initial intake session, coaching interactions may take place in person, or by other communication means like phone calls or video chat.

Assuming a coach has been employed based on their qualifications and “good fit” with the client, the process typically starts out with an “intake” session where coach and client get to know each other. For the coach, this often means using various standardized assessments designed to elicit information critical to defining strengths and weaknesses and setting reasonable goals. While the intake meeting may be similar for most of a coach’s clients, the subsequent coaching sessions are more personalized.

Determining which issues limit the client’s ability to perform at an optimum level

Determining how to address those issues

Discussing potential solutions or improvement actions for the client, with input from the client

Developing a written action plan listing what the client, coach (and possibly other stakeholders, such as the client’s manager) will do to improve performance

Set dates and times for follow-up interactions

During follow-up interactions, further exercises and “homework” may be assigned to encourage further progress toward goals

Coaching in Business for Executives

Why would a CEO, someone at the pinnacle of an organization, need a coach? For the same reason that Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, needs a coach: to maintain form and continue peak performance over the long term.

Likewise, other senior executives, who may act with a great deal of autonomy, benefit from coaching as well. Coaches help executives recognize their blind spots, and the invisible barriers they may have built around themselves as they climbed the corporate ladder. Psychological blind spots may soothe the ego, but they’re otherwise detrimental in the long term.

Coaches act dispassionately, and this can be eye-opening for a top executive who is used to having their every opinion rubber-stamped by others. The value of an unbiased perspective cannot be overemphasized when it comes to corporate leadership. Consequently, a coach is often willing to ask questions that others wouldn’t feel they had the authority to ask. Because a strong coaching relationship is egalitarian, the coach has the opportunity to relate to an executive on a level that no one else does, and this can open up an entirely new perspective for the client.

Coaching in Business for Other Leaders

It’s not uncommon for businesses to engage coaches to work with non-executive leaders, and there are many reasons for this. The main reason is that coaching improves performance, and why wouldn’t a business want all leaders to perform at peak levels? Another reason non-executive leaders work with coaches is that top leadership is committed to strong leadership succession. Eventually, executives retire or move on, and having a strong “bench” of potential executives makes these transitions less disruptive.

Also, depending on the company size and structure, non-executive leaders, such as department heads, may have significant autonomy and significant influence over day-to-day operations as well as results like productivity and profitability. In those cases, it only makes sense that the leaders entrusted with presiding over departments or key teams have all the skills and resources they need at their disposal, so they can generate peak performance from their departments or teams.

Using Coaching Principles Throughout an Organization

Coaching culture as exemplified and encouraged by those at top levels of the organization ripples outward throughout the organization.

Most companies don’t have the resources to engage coaches for all their personnel in leadership positions, but that doesn’t mean that coaching in business is reserved solely for those at the very top of the organizational chart. The value of a coaching culture at every level of business has been demonstrated repeatedly.

Coaching-based leadership makes sense not only for the CEO or the vice president for financial operations, but also for the administrative team leader, the head line cook, and the leader of the facilities management team.

The fact is, “traditional” leadership, which is often based on control and correction, may work well in the short term, but falls short over time. Coaching-based leadership is based on asking questions that spark insight, listening, and re-framing challenges as opportunities. This approach to leadership works whether you’re getting a team ready to orchestrate a merger, directing a group of summer interns, or heading the team in charge of implementing new accounting software.

The best way top brass can instill a coaching culture (aside from using coaches with as many leaders as is feasible) is to lead by example. Other ways include:

Asking questions and showing that it’s OK for everyone to ask questions

Encouraging self-coaching among team members

Listening to suggestions from frontline employees

Tracking results of coaching culture efforts

Offering training opportunities for people at all levels

What Businesses Want from Coaching

They want quantifiable results. Yes, coaching can be empowering and help leaders feel better about what they’re doing, but ultimately businesses want the value of coaching to be reflected on their bottom line. There are both highly competent coaches and ineffective coaches. While ineffective coaches waste time and money, outstanding coaches in business gain their reputation by helping businesses get measurable business results. Successful coaching engagements can result in:

Increased sales performance

Faster turnaround into profitability

Better investor relationships

Higher revenue

Company growth

Smoother leadership transitions

Businesses that hire executive coaches can calculate a simple benefits/cost ratio, dividing monetary benefits by the cost of the coaching. They can also calculate a return on coaching investment. Net benefits from coaching are the monetary benefits minus the coaching cost. Dividing the net benefits (earnings) by coaching cost (investment) and multiplying by 100 gives you an ROI percentage.

Another hard number that companies focus upon when engaging executive coaches is turnover (at all levels of the company). Employee turnover is expensive, and preventing the exodus of just a handful of professionals by improving operations and job satisfaction through coaching can more than offset coaching costs.

How Businesses Find Good Coaches

Due diligence in finding a good coach requires research, following up on recommendations, and confirming a candidate coach’s experience and qualifications.

Assuming the person designated to work with the coach is a ready and willing participant, the first step to finding the right coach is to look for someone with experience in coaching someone of that level – preferably in a similar industry. Choosing a coach with a clear methodology is paramount.

There is no single credential that indicates someone is an effective coach the way, say, someone with “M.D.” after their name is known to have completed medical school and passed various competency exams. But coaching credentials and accreditation of coach training programs exist.

The International Coach Federation (ICF) is a current “gold standard” for executive coaching. ICF-certified coaches are required to pursue rigorous education and practice standards before earning the credential, and this can help organizations separate effective, committed coaches from those who take coaching less seriously. Furthermore, coach training programs can gain accreditation by the ICF, assuring coach trainees that programs have high standards and deliver the training that aspiring coaches need.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are immensely valuable when it comes to coaches, and following up with references from candidate coaches is extremely important for businesses to ensure their resources are being spent wisely.

Matching the Coach to the Client

Good rapport, or “fit” between coach and client is essential to getting good results. The fact is, a coach may have sterling credentials, extensive experience, and glowing references, yet still be wrong for a particular client, even if the client is willing and motivated about being coached. It can be dangerous to assign a coach to a client without the two having at least had a conversation about it.

A client should feel inspired and confident from speaking with a coach. They should believe the coach is listening to them and truly considering what is said. Both coach and client should feel comfortable speaking honestly with each other, and each should understand the egalitarian relationship between coach and client. While both coach and client will take the lead at certain points during the term in which they work together, each should understand the other’s value and viewpoint at all times.

Clients and coaches who never feel as if they’re on the same page will have a hard time making progress. Likewise, clients and coaches who are too much alike risk complacency and simple validation, rather than genuinely uncovering goals and opportunities and working toward them. Ideally, a coaching client should talk to multiple coaches before choosing the one that represents the best fit for the process.

How a Company Can Implement Coaching

Companies that have never used coaching before will have to make a business case for it. This may start through a conversation among leaders, or with one leader researching coaching in business and learning how it works and how businesses benefit.

It’s not uncommon for businesses to experience pushback when they first bring up the idea of coaching. Some leaders may feel insulted, believing that hiring a coach indicates that they’re not performing well. Overcoming this type of resistance may be the most challenging aspect of implementing coaching for the first time.

It may end up that the person broaching the idea of bringing in coaches volunteers to be the first coaching client. This can help dispel the notion of coaching as “remedial” and help bring others on board with the idea. Any first-time coaching experience for a company should be thoroughly documented from beginning to end, not only so that others may learn what coaching really is about, but also to facilitate “lessons learned” and to make the next coaching engagement even better.

The person who initiates the idea of coaching may need to be willing to “go first” to gain buy-in from other leaders.

For coaching to gain traction in a business that has never used coaching before, leaders must understand that the old days of bringing in a coach to try to salvage a bad job appointment are long over with. There may have been a time when coaching in business was used to attempt remediation, but it didn’t take businesses long to realize that it’s not an effective use of coaching. Today, coaching in business is similar to coaching at the top levels of sport, or music: it’s designed to take the already highly competent to even greater levels of performance.

Conclusion

Coaching in business is no longer the rare exception, but is increasingly expected for CEOs, top executives, and other critical leadership positions. Coaching isn’t about teaching someone how to do their job – it’s assumed the client already knows that. It’s about making a leader’s inherent strengths stronger, and about recognizing where there’s opportunity for improvement and setting about making those improvements.

In an ideal world, everyone in a position of leadership would have the coaching they need, but it is entirely possible for a company to invest in coaching for top leadership and use the lessons learned as a way to bring coaching culture to all levels of the company.

In my career, I have consulted for more than 250 organizations and personally coached more than 200 executives. I have also been honored to receive many coaching and leadership training awards. The reason I’m so passionate about coaching in business is that I’ve personally seen what it can accomplish. I invite you to learn more about my own coaching services, and to explore the many free coaching and corporate culture resources available on my website. You might consider checking out my books to learn more as well.

Glossary of Terms

Coaching – a partnership between a coach and a client in a creative, thought-provoking process that helps the client maximize their potential by defining, working toward, and achieving goals

Coaching culture – the culture within an organization where coaching is a key aspect of how leaders train, encourage, and engage followers, with the overall goal of increased personal and organizational performance

Corporate culture – the beliefs and behaviors that underly how employees interact with each other and with management, and how they handle business transactions and operations

Executive coaching – a coaching relationship designed specifically to help those at the top levels of organizational leadership maximize strengths, address shortcomings, and ultimately perform more effectively

Intake meeting – the initial meeting between a coach and client in which necessary preliminary tasks are taken care of, such as assessments, preliminary definitions of goals, and defining the scope and length of the coach-client relationship

International Coach Federation (ICF) – a leading global organization for advancing the coaching profession through certification, accreditation, and global networking of trained coaching professionals

Leadership coaching – a coaching relationship designed for leaders (who may or may not be executives), with the goals of maximizing strengths, addressing weaknesses, and performing leadership duties more effectively

Funny how a new calendar year feels like a fresh start, even when it doesn’t line up with the fiscal year.

New years feel full of possibilities.

Yet, there’s something about a new year and the twelve fresh months that stretch ahead of New Year’s Day that inspires us to want to improve things. It only makes sense that businesses big and small want to make the most of 2019, and one way they might do that is to consider occasions when a keynote speaker would be appropriate.

Nothing kicks off or concludes an event quite the way a charismatic live speaker does. Sure, there are thousands – maybe millions – of inspirational talks available through online video, but none will have the immediacy and captivate the audience the way a live event does. Here are just a few of the reasons you may choose to hire keynote speakers in the coming year.

Major Company Milestones

Is 2019 the year your company will have been in business for 10, 20, 30 or more years? Those decade-based anniversaries are big milestones, helping you look back and see how far you have come. If you plan on celebrating a major work milestone, check keynote speakers for their availability during your celebration. The best keynote speakers are willing to work with you to craft the perfect presentation for your milestone, and you can be sure that with an outstanding speaker, the celebration will be remembered for many years.

Capturing a Big Contract or a Plum Client

When everyone puts in their best efforts and the result is landing a major new contract or a dream client, it’s worthy of celebration and of marking the beginning of something important. It’s not uncommon for companies to host a picnic, a dinner, or some other celebratory occasion to mark a major accomplishment like a big new contract. Keynote speakers who specialize in inspirational and motivational presentations are ideal for such an occasion, and they help give the kick-off of your new responsibilities the attention it deserves.

Kicking Off a New Training Initiative

Suppose everyone in your company (or in your department, or on your team) will be completing a new training program in the coming year. Maybe it’s to get up to speed on a major new software system, or perhaps it’s a more general training initiative to improve people’s communication skills or organizational skills.

A strong source of motivation and inspiration can make training sessions more effective.

There’s no reason not to start or end the training initiative on a high note, by bringing in a keynote speaker – perhaps one who is known for presentations emphasizing what it takes to tackle new challenges and emerge triumphantly.

A Small Annual Event You Want to Upsize

In another vein, suppose your company has always hosted a small technical conference for people in your industry. The event may have grown and started to gain a reputation as an important event for professionals in your industry to attend. Maybe it’s been run rather informally in the past, but this year you want to take things up a level. In addition to perhaps inviting more people or including more plenary or breakout sessions, consider hiring a keynote speaker for the event. Few things mark a technical conference or meeting as “not to be missed” like the presence of a respected keynote speaker.

Keynote speakers, when chosen and vetted properly, add something to an event that simply can’t be duplicated. The immediacy of live audience interaction with someone trained in the art of public speaking may be relived through video, but it can’t be replaced. Similarly to how seeing a live theater production of a play is an entirely different experience to seeing a movie adaptation of the same play, being in the audience in the presence of an accomplished keynote speaker is a unique experience.

It’s also the perfect experience for marking major business occasions, because of the lasting impression keynote speakers have on their audiences. If you have major business milestones or events coming up, consider bringing in a keynote speaker to add to the sense of importance and to engage the people affected by the milestone or event.

The memories and sense of “being there” will last long after the speaker has left and work gets back to normal. And if you’re interested in having me as a keynote speaker, I invite you to check my speaking availability. Simply fill out the brief form, and someone will be in touch with you right away.

Leadership styles will always be influenced by the personalities of individual leaders. There’s no way to “clone” leadership from one human to another, and thank goodness for that!

Even if we could clone outstanding leaders, it wouldn’t be smart, because leaders must be a good fit for the groups they lead – groups that are increasingly diverse.

Leadership style is important, but it’s one of many characteristics that help determine which leader is the best fit for which organization.

If you’ve been in the workforce long enough to have had multiple jobs and roles, then you’ve almost certainly encountered leaders of various types, including:

The autocrat – whose word is final and who does little if any consulting with others before making decisions

The democratic leader – who makes decisions after including team members and other trusted people in the evaluation process

The laissez-faire leader – who gives team members significant scope (sometimes too much scope) in how they do their work

The true transformational leader strives to combine the best characteristics of other leadership types. They tend to demonstrate great creativity, compassion, and a clear vision of where the organization is headed. It’s a type of leadership that makes sense for today’s business world.

The Key Characteristic That Sets Transformational Leaders Apart

Transformational leaders place great emphasis on listening. The best ones do their utmost to listen to multiple viewpoints and not just those that confirm what they were already thinking. It takes confidence and inner security to do this because true listening can ultimately result in the admission of being wrong, and many old-style leaders had a hard time with that concept.

Transformational leaders know how important listening is because they know how much followers have changed over the decades. Today’s team members are informed, curious, and diverse, and they have their own goals. Some of them are also future leaders. Listening is a way that transformational leaders ensure they are as fully informed as possible when they make key decisions.

Why Other Leadership Styles Were More Relevant in Different Eras

The autocratic leader made more sense in an era when change was slow and stability was expected. And there are times in today’s business world when the ability to make a decision on behalf of a group, with confidence and ownership, is the right thing to do.

Sure, there are times when swift, sure, final decisions must be made, but autocratic leadership can be problematic in an era of rapid change.

Likewise, the more democratic leader, who was willing to accept team consensus on some decisions made sense in times when risks were lower in business. Laissez-faire leaders may still be effective in organizations where autonomy is necessary to keep moving forward, as it is in many creative industries.

But it is the transformational leader that is best suited for a business world that moves quickly, where risks can be high, and where organizations are held accountable for the actions of individuals in them.

Leadership Coaching and Transformational Leadership

Leadership coaching doesn’t try to impose a leadership style on a client. But leadership coaches often work on skills that are essential for transformational leadership. For example, many clients work with coaches specifically on developing their listening skills, because they have been in situations where inadequate listening skills have caused problems.

Leadership coaching is also used by leaders who consider themselves to be transformational leaders because they know they have skills gaps that need to be filled. For example, a leader may be a fantastic listener but may have trouble taking the steps from listening and gathering evidence to making a decision and sticking to it.

Transformational leaders are often described as energetic, passionate, trustworthy, intelligent, and creative, and they tend to inspire these qualities in others. While there may be times when the transformational leader must act authoritatively, or step back and allow more autonomy, the difference is that they do so knowing why they’re doing it, and without giving up the great listening and data gathering skills that make them strong leaders.

We live in a world where transformation happens constantly, and leadership styles that don’t accept and work with that fact simply won’t be as effective as they were in earlier eras. If you’re interested in learning more about the transformation that’s ongoing in today’s business culture, and about the role of great leadership, I invite you to check out my books as well as my executive coaching programs.

Do some companies invest in leadership development because it’s what everyone else does? Possibly. But most invest in leadership development such as training and leadership coaching because they want to see actual results.

Companies don’t just hire leadership coaches because it’s “the thing to do,” but because they want to see measurable business results.

The problem is, leadership development initiatives don’t always translate to actual change within the company. One study found that only 15% of leaders undergoing leadership training were able to effect actual change within the company. Another found that while more than two-thirds of organizations considered leadership development critical to their business strategy, only 20% thought their leadership development efforts had measurable business results.

Leadership development isn’t just for leaders, or else it’s likely to simply be a self-indulgent exercise. It must translate to results throughout the company and on the bottom line. Here’s how to ensure leadership development, leadership coaching, and all other investments in leadership actually pay off.

Leadership Development for Leaders Themselves

Companies that don’t offer their leaders growth opportunities risk losing them to other companies, and when this happens regularly, company growth is stunted, and succession options rapidly become depleted. Leaders themselves must understand the value of leadership development, and they must understand what the company expects from them.

Moreover, leaders who understand and appreciate talent development at all corporate levels have distinct advantages over leaders that don’t, because they realize the importance of things like succession planning, leadership coaching, and the bottom-line results that come from well-led teams.

Translating Leadership Development into Stronger Teams

Compare a well-led team to a poorly-led team, and it’s easy to see how crucial good leadership is. Not every organization has the resources to offer leadership coaching at the team leader level. But it’s reasonable to assume that team leaders who are in turn led by properly trained and coached departmental and executive leaders would outperform team leaders without those resources.

And that leads to another characteristic of strong top-level leaders: they are invested in what happens in the departments and teams underneath them on the organizational chart. One of the most important tasks involved in leadership coaching is the alignment of the leader’s goals with the organizational goals.

Ever driven on a car where the wheels weren’t in alignment? The ride was probably uncomfortable, and you probably used more fuel than necessary to get where you were going.

When the leader’s goals are in alignment with the organization’s goals, forward progress is faster and smoother. When a leader’s goals are in a different universe than the organization’s goals, stagnation and even regression of business results can result.

Ensuring Leadership Development Benefits the Entire Workforce

Leadership development isn’t solely about the leaders. In fact, the best kind of leadership development works toward a better organization at all levels. Leadership that feels disconnected from the rank-and-file doesn’t inspire people to go above and beyond. The worst cases can inspire resentment. Proper leadership development should get results that permeate the culture, demonstrating repeatedly that the leaders are doing what they were hired to do, and that the organization is better off because of it.

Despite the many changes in the world of business in recent years, the fundamentals of leadership are the same as they’ve ever been:

Uniting people around common organizational goals

Creating a strategy for achieving those goals by tapping into everyone’s talents

Attracting high-quality employees at all levels

Focusing on results

Innovating

Practicing self-leadership – continually striving to improve oneself so as to be more effective and lead better

These fundamentals practiced with consistency, integrity, and transparency, show measurable, positive business results.

My leadership coaching career has taught me the importance of the organizational context within which a leader operates. It is clear that the businesses with strong principles, that operate ethically, logically, and with an open mind toward innovation and change are the ones in which leadership development (including leadership coaching) gets the most outstanding results. Is leadership development part of your company’s overarching vision for 2019? If so, I invite you to check out my books, as well as my leadership and executive coaching programs.

The intangible benefits of working for an organization with a strong, positive culture are obvious.

It’s hard to put a price-tag on some of the aspects of strong company culture.

People want to work there and tend to stay longer. And companies with strong cultures often make it onto “Top 100” and other lists of great places to work. People go there knowing that great things are happening and that they want to be a part of them.

The tangible benefits of strong culture are apparent too. A 2018 study by Chief Executive found that companies with leaders invested in positive company culture and positive cultural transformation outperformed others in revenue growth by an impressive 36%! So by ignoring company culture, or assuming it will take care of itself, you could be leaving money on the table.

Customer Service Is a Primary Example

Have you ever dealt with a customer service agent at a company that was struggling? A company where the fight for survival meant putting company culture on a back burner? If so, you probably didn’t have the greatest customer service experience.

By contrast, have you ever dealt with customer service in a company where culture was a priority, and where strong culture carried through to every employee, including those on the front lines dealing with customer issues? If so, you probably had a much better customer service experience.

Company culture, whether tended carefully or left to its own devices, permeates the company. It’s not reasonable to expect that a place with poor leadership and a negative company culture will somehow have a customer service department that delivers outstanding services.

Great Culture Feeds Agility

Agility is essential in today’s business world. Everything moves at lightning speed, and there’s more opportunity for startups to displace stodgier, less nimble competitors, even if those competitors have a strong size advantage.

Agility depends upon assessing reality and then reacting to it in ways that meet customer needs better. That’s nearly impossible in a company where “culture” is nothing more than a holdover from days when “how we’ve always done it” worked. The world will move ahead whether company culture does so or not. And the companies that invest in culture that makes sense for today’s business world and today’s employees are the ones that will benefit most.

What to Strive For

Awareness of company culture – what it is and what it ought to be – is a starting point, but it isn’t enough. Companies that are serious about cultural transformation must deliberately set the stage for change. Sometimes this requires leadership changes, and often it requires executive coaching to prepare top leadership for change.

Companies must recognize what’s good about their existing company culture, showcase that, and build upon it. But few company cultures are ideal. Therefore, it’s often necessary to review organizational structures, power, and decision-making to determine if they still work well, or if they need to be revised.

Talking to employees at all levels is also critical for building a strong culture. Turnover at the entry level, or at lower organizational levels might be tolerable, but it still represents a cost. Finding out what motivates employees and what discourages them is necessary for building the best company culture.

Finally, the importance of listening to employees cannot be overstated. Most employees want to do their work, be fairly compensated for it, and feel valued. They’re not looking for excuses to complain. So when employees do bring problems to the attention of those higher up, it’s incumbent upon leaders to really listen. Not every little thing can be changed for every employee, but listening clues leadership in on potential trends, or underlying problems that need to be resolved before they affect the bottom line.

One of the most important reasons businesses invest in executive coaching is to help build a better company culture. Simply letting company culture “develop” as it will be profoundly dangerous, because it allows poor processes and poor attitudes to set in, making them harder to tackle once the problems become systemic.

Cultural transformation isn’t just a “feel-good” exercise to convince leaders that the frontline workforce is contented. It’s a business imperative that ensures strong business practices, and the tangible benefits that result from them. If cultural transformation is a priority to your company in 2019, I invite you to learn more about my corporate culture services.

Strong corporate culture provides two seemingly competing characteristics: stability and dynamism. The stability is provided by deep principles on which the culture is based. The dynamism is provided by the actions and attitudes that constantly grow and evolve based on those core principles. It is a way of looking at the stars while having feet firmly planted on the ground.

Practicality and creativity can feed each other in the right setting.

Without culture, a business is nothing more than a place people go to work so they can support themselves. Things may get done, but beyond basic business processes, the company is relatively inert, giving up countless opportunities to make lives better, both inside and outside the walls of the business.

Following are five key aspects of a healthy and successful company culture. Work on improving them, and you create a business that’s more than just a place for people to work and earn paychecks.

1. Mindfulness

There’s little mystery why so many leadership coaching clients work on mindfulness. Mindfulness is about being in the present moment and accepting the current reality. It helps tune out distractions and promotes problem-solving and creativity. Developing mindfulness in the workforce doesn’t require mandatory yoga classes, but it does require instilling a culture of focusing on the moment, and leaders who practice mindfulness and set a great example. It also requires acknowledging times when it’s appropriate to celebrate or to step away from work momentarily to appreciate why we do what we do.

2. Organization-Wide Understanding of the Importance of Culture

If the corporate culture is only talked about in meetings of department heads or is only taken seriously by some of the departments, the benefits won’t be apparent. Every employee, regardless of their position on the organizational chart, must be educated about what the company is about: not just making semiconductors or designing glassware, but also being a force for positive change in the world. Everyone needs to know that their contribution matters, and how their contribution matters.

3. Cutting Back the “Weeds” of Negativity

Just as actual weeds can take over an untended garden in record time, the corporate “weeds” of negativity grow fast and can choke out positive initiatives if left unchecked. This is not to say that everyone must show a forced positivity at all times, but that genuine complaints are considered and listened to, rather than ignored and left to transform into rumors and general negative energy. Negativity must not be ignored, but understood, so it can be addressed and not allowed to strangle positivity.

Attention to culture helps prevent the “weeds” of negativity from taking over.

4. Ensuring Company Values Work with, not Against Each Other

What are your corporate values? If you spelled them all out, do they show a coherent direction, or do some of them seem at cross-purposes with others? If you say you value outstanding productivity and each employee’s growth and well-being, do you allow one of those to “win” over the other? How will you tell when one value needs to take precedence over another, and how will you bring things back into balance when that is no longer the case? Don’t just say you value something: demonstrate that you do.

5. Being Part of a Larger Community

It doesn’t matter if your company is self-contained in one location or distributed among teams around the globe: it is part of a larger community. Maybe your company headquarters takes up an entire city block, but it is also part of the neighborhood and the city. How does it make those places better? Community outreach and social responsibility are important, not only for young professionals looking for the best places to work but for the good of the surrounding community. The “goodwill” benefits of making the community better may not be as easy to measure as numbers on an annual report, but they carry tremendous weight.

If you are focused on the direction of your corporate culture, I invite you to learn more about my corporate culture and transformation advisory services. Both the historic numbers and my own experiences have taught me that the current and future operating success of a business is tied to the health and maturity of its culture, and I can teach you how to develop a transformation plan that will put your company on the path to genuine, long-term success.

You may have read in the news lately about a prevailing culture at streaming video giant Netflix that values fear as a motivator in the workforce.

When fear is the primary motivator in business, something is probably amiss.

According to various news articles, employees at Netflix earn high salaries but must operate at peak performance at all times to remain employed there. Critical public feedback and even public firings happen if the news articles are to be believed.

On the one hand, there’s no denying how successful Netflix has been, how it has disrupted the entire entertainment industry, and how it has changed people’s viewing habits and expectations for video entertainment.

But can a cutthroat approach to corporate culture work over the long term? How can such a culture expect to attract the best job candidates when they can work at other high-compensation companies without worrying about being fired in front of everyone?

Fear as a Performance Motivator?

There is no question that fear can be an outstanding motivator. Most of us have, if nothing else, experienced the fear of failing a test, or of letting our team down, and have risen to the occasion. It’s probably good for us to know we can have our eyes opened to problems that must be solved quickly, and then actually solve them.

For some people, for whom failure threatens their entire sense of self, fear can work as a motivator for a long time. But not everyone is like that. People with a secure self-concept, who are passionate about their work, may not regularly consider “avoiding failure” as part of what motivates them. Do these people have a place in organizations with fear-based corporate culture? Maybe for the short term, but they’re not likely to stick around for long in an “all-sticks-no-carrots” environment.

Different Things Drive Short-Term and Long-Term Success

We have all felt the crunch at work, when an important deadline looms, or when a presentation must go off perfectly to land a great client. Gearing up for these periods of intense focus and hard work may involve plenty of other motivators besides the possibility of accomplishing something great. Maybe the boss brings in a catered dinner for team members having to work long hours in preparation, for example.

Sometimes a little TLC during “crunch time” at work can keep the team going strong.

When it comes to long-term success, however, many of us envision our future selves and the future in which those selves live. And often we think of work we’re passionate about. Think of the astrophysicist spending an entire career looking for signals way out in the universe that may or may not appear. It’s not always the clearly-defined accomplishment (landing this account, or adding that many site subscribers) that keeps us going over the long haul, but passion combined with an envisioned future.

Feeling Valued, Not Fearful, Is Better for Long-Term Success

Nobody is saying that businesses must coddle underperformers or avoid hurting employee feelings at all costs. It is business, after all. But working in an environment that takes employees in, chews them up and spits them out is only going to work long-term for a small subset of professionals.

Success at all costs may work in a gritty 80s and 90s movies like Wall Street or Glengarry Glen Ross, but actual life is more than what happens on a big screen for a couple of hours. Healthy corporate cultures value corporate success, naturally, but they also value the people who make that success happen.

Sometimes executive coaching clients must come to grips with their own “success at all costs” mindset because when success happens due to cutting corners, or at the expense of long-term sustainability, it will eventually come crashing down. Ultimately, every executive, and every employee for that matter asks, “Why am I doing this?” If the answer is, “I just don’t know anymore,” then nobody wins.

Corporate culture is more than a slogan or a mission statement. It’s something that must be practiced until it is second nature. If you’re interested in learning more about corporate culture and cultural transformation, contact me or check out my books, which go into greater detail on these essential business topics.

When companies invest in executive coaching, they do so in hopes of gaining measurable improvements.

Why do we invest in our children’s education? Because we want the result of prepared, independent people who contribute to society. We invest financially to get the result of greater financial freedom. We invest in improving skills because we want the result of being more competent and effective.

Likewise, companies invest in executive coaches because they want the result of more effective top leadership. But the companies with the deepest pockets know that just because someone calls themselves an executive coach doesn’t mean they have the skills to work with top executives, address their skills gaps, double down on best characteristics, and facilitate better results for the company.

Executive coaching programs aren’t hard to find. But determining which executive coaching programs turn out truly qualified executive coaches can be a bit more of a challenge. Making this extra effort is mandatory, however, for organizations that want to maximize the return on their executive coaching investment.

What Backgrounds Do Top Executive Coaches Typically Have?

Most executive coaches have backgrounds in things other than coaching. Just as many opera coaches are former opera singers, and just as many sports coaches have extensive experience playing the sport they coach, executive coaches often have experience in the highest levels of business leadership.

That is not always the case, however. You’re likely to find some executive coaches who specialize in particular industries, and this can be helpful. For example, hiring an executive coach for the top brass in a healthcare corporation will typically require a different set of expectations than would hiring a coach in an industrial solvents business or a transportation company.

Do you need to choose an executive coach with a background in your particular industry? Not necessarily. However, highly specialized industries with highly specialized customer bases tend to benefit from hiring executive coaches with specific experience in those industries, because they are likelier to understand what these companies need from their top leadership positions.

It doesn’t matter what industry your business is in: you can almost certainly find an executive coach with experience in that industry, and while it isn’t strictly necessary, it can be a good way to narrow the field when choosing an executive coach for your top leadership.

What Training Is Available for Aspiring Executive Coaches?

A simple search engine query on “train to become an executive coach” yields over 99 million results, so there’s no shortage of people or programs out there claiming to serve this need. Since there is no single, official credential that will tell you whether an executive coach is qualified the way, say, an accountant is qualified, you could hire an executive coach with any number (or no number) of training experiences.

The fact is, anyone can claim to be an executive coach whether or not they have been through an executive coaching program, so it’s wise to be skeptical of the credentials of anyone who says they are an executive coach.

The good news is that executive coaching programs are evolving to more directly meet the needs of potential coaching clients, and those who are serious about becoming an executive coach know that if they want to land the best clients, they have to bring something more to the table than a hastily-earned certificate bestowing the title “executive coach” on them.

Today there are even accreditation programs for executive coach training programs that can help potential clients determine whether the coaches they consider hiring have the necessary training and experience to deliver outstanding results. There’s still no equivalent to the Bar Exam for executive coaches, but it’s a bit less of a “Wild West” environment than it used to be with respect to finding qualified coaches.

Components of Great Executive Coaching Programs

Any top executive coaching program will cover the three main pillars of overarching coaching principles, practice guidelines, and core competencies.

The overarching principles learned in executive coaching programs work as a compass to the coach and the client. A systems perspective is one such principle because the goal of coaching a single executive is always pursued as part of a larger goal of organizational success. Other overarching principles include a results-based orientation, because results are, after all, what the organization wants, and a business focus because the coach is not a substitute for a therapist.

Executive coaching is ultimately about business, not about exploring psychological issues.

Practice guidelines taught in executive coaching programs include topics like confidentiality, pre-coaching assessments and activities, the development of coaching contracts, assessments, goal-setting techniques, and follow-up.

Core competencies taught in high-quality executive coaching programs include psychological knowledge, business understanding, organizational understanding, and proven coaching techniques. Coaches should also be specifically trained in how to build and maintain coaching relationships, how to conduct developmental planning with the client organization, and how to facilitate development and change with clients.

Finally, coaches should be trained in how and when to conclude the coaching relationship, and how to help clients make the transition to long-term development. Most executive coaches provide for some follow-up guidance after the official coaching relationship has ended, and this can be tremendously helpful for executives who want to continue developing the skills and techniques that coaching has helped them learn.

Advantages of Executive Coaching Programs That Are Accredited

Accreditation, in general, is a process where an organization obtains certification of competency and credibility. When evaluating accreditation of executive coaching programs, it’s important to learn about not only the coaching program but also about the organization bestowing the accreditation. In the field of executive coaching, it is the International Coach Federation (ICF) that is the most prominent accrediting body.

One of the main purposes of the ICF is to ensure high standards in the coaching profession, because the better the training program is, the better results the coaches trained by it will deliver. The ICF is recognized as an industry leader worldwide, and ICF accreditation generally indicates that an executive coaching program has proven credibility.

The ICF also has an official Code of Conduct for their program accreditation, and it addresses several key issues that companies considering hiring an executive coach should examine closely, including:

Fraud

Organizational and employee conduct

Distribution of approved courses

Course operational standards

Course content standards

Faculty standards

Incremental review

Past unethical behavior

When you’re excited about hiring an executive coach, it can be somewhat of a downer to consider the possibility that a training program isn’t up to scratch, or may have had problems in the past, but it’s part of the due diligence that must be done to ensure that the investment in executive coaching gets the desired results.

Can Coaches Receive Some or All of their Training Online?

Many aspects of executive coach training can be and are carried out online. Not everyone who aspires to become an executive coach has the resources to devote to even a short-term, intensive program on a campus. In fact, even executive coaching programs that conduct most of the training in a classroom generally have some of the activities online, for practical reasons.

Today’s executive coaching programs tend to include both in-person and online components.

One example of an accredited executive coach training program is John Mattone’s Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching Certification. The program is accredited by the ICF and is designed to ignite (or re-ignite) a participant’s coaching career by training in proven executive coaching philosophies, processes, and tools. Some of the training takes place online.

The program includes an intensive, immersive three-day hands-on learning experience, as well as a comprehensive resource manual, plus a recommended two-year development journey so that skills learned can be consistently applied as an executive coach grows their practice. Further levels of mastery can be pursued with additional in-person and online learning modules.

In short, even the world’s top executive coaching programs are realistic, in that they understand the value of online learning. Accredited online training programs are pursued by aspiring executive coaches who may not have geographic access to in-person programs. The key to succeeding at any high-quality training program is the effort and time the participant is willing to invest in the process.

Hiring an Executive Coach with the Right Qualifications

Since coaching is an unregulated industry, you will have to ask questions and do research to find out what qualifications a potential coach offers. You can be more confident of their qualifications if they show they completed an accredited program, such as one accredited by the ICF. Another way to check out credentials is to do online searches of both the candidate coach and any programs they attended.

While there are many coaches who consider themselves generalists, there are also many who choose to specialize in certain industries. You may or may not choose to hire an executive coach who specializes in your particular industry, but you are wise to discuss your needs as well as your industry when talking to potential coaches. Any top executive coach will have the names and contact information of trusted professional references you can talk to about their expertise and experience.

Experience, training, and passion for coaching should all be evident in any candidate coaches you interview.

Many executive coaches offer complimentary “discovery” sessions that allow both parties to assess how good a “fit” the coaching relationship will be. Ideally, both the person who is to be coached and the person responsible for hiring the coach will be in on this session to go over topics like:

Minimum commitments, including follow-up commitments

Frequency of meetings

Expected outcomes

ROI for prior client organizations and executives

Success stories – especially if the client can follow up on them

Additionally, this session should give clients an idea of the level of synergy between the coach and client, as well as whether the coach is well-organized, and genuinely committed to what they do.

Questions to Ask Potential Executive Coach Candidates

You will undoubtedly have plenty of your own, specific questions to ask of candidate coaches, but be sure to ask the following as well:

How long have you been coaching?

What clients have you worked with?

What events led you to become an executive coach?

Can you provide me with references?

What steps will you take to understand our unique corporate culture?

How do you tailor plans to meet specific coaching needs and budgets?

What type of coaching methodology do you use?

Can you give me an example of when you empowered a client to leave their comfort zone?

How would you handle telling a client that they are wrong about something?

Do you have experience in our industry?

What training and certifications do you have?

How do you measure the success of the coaching engagement?

How long are typical coaching engagements, and do you offer follow-up afterward?

Even for large, successful businesses, executive coaching can be a sizeable investment. Maximizing the return on that investment requires that you do plenty of research and ask plenty of questions before signing a contract with an executive coach.

Signing a contract with an executive coach should only come after thorough research and vetting.

What if You Want to Become an Executive Coach?

The process of becoming an executive coach may appear simple, but it isn’t easy. The first, and perhaps most important thing you can do is to ask yourself if coaching is the right calling for you. Being a great coach requires genuinely wanting to coach. You might be surprised at the number of people who entertain the idea of being an executive coach without being convinced deep down that coaching is a good fit for their experience, goals, and personality.

Assuming that coaching is a genuine goal, and something you’re willing to learn, practice, and persevere with, the next step is choosing an accredited executive coaching program. There are many of them, so you’ll need to research several. Consider how the training is delivered (online, in person, or a combination of both), how much it costs, how long it lasts, and what credentials you will receive upon successfully completing training.

Once you finish your executive coaching program, you will need to build coaching experience hours. Many coaching programs help program participants to do this as part of the training program, but not all do. Working with a mentor coach can be tremendously helpful in learning the daily ins and outs of the coaching business, and in networking and finding opportunities to coach. With many executive coaching programs, the hours you spend coaching in the field can count toward additional coaching credentials.

Getting your first coaching client is a major milestone, and it may take time, but don’t give up. Networking and asking for word-of-mouth recommendations is necessary, but there is much more you can do in the meantime. One of the most important things to do is to know your “ideal” client. What industry are they in? Do they work for a small or large enterprise? What types of changes do they want to make?

Create and practice your “elevator speech” that lets someone know in 30 seconds what you do and how you do it. And make it easy to do business with you. Always have with you a selection of your own marketing collateral, or at least a rate sheet with clear payment options so people will see that you take your work seriously and are ready to answer their questions.

Finally, set realistic goals with a timeline. You may need to start with an offer that is hard to resist, such as a flat-rate package of time with clear goals and a clear value proposition. After you acquire the first client (and presumably give them your absolute best effort), you’ve built some momentum toward gaining the next client, and so on, with each client, you add to your repertoire.

Marketing yourself online should begin before you land that first client, and should include your presence on a handful of social media sites (especially sites on which you have a loyal following). Content marketing through blogging is standard practice with executive coaches. If you haven’t the time to consistently publish relevant information to your coaching blog, you may need to invest in a writer who can do this for you. Consistency and commitment are the keys to building a strong online presence that will serve your coaching practice for years to come.

Conclusion

Executive coaching that gets demonstrable results benefits both the client organization and the coach.

Executive coaching programs strive to train executive coaches who deliver measurable value to their clients. At the same time, because there is no regulation in the executive coaching industry, sketchy executive coaching programs exist that hand out meaningless credentials and do little but waste people’s time and money.

Accredited executive coaching programs are the ones that companies should look for when evaluating potential coaches for their top leaders because it is the accredited programs that have the most to lose from ill-prepared or marginally trained coaches that come from the programs.

Becoming a successful executive coach is simple, but not easy, and companies that take the time to research potential coaches and to talk to them before signing a contract are likeliest to discover just the right coach for their needs. Great coaching relationships depend on honesty and transparency, right from the start.

If you want to know more about executive coaching, corporate culture, and the importance of coaching to outstanding leadership that gets results, I invite you to check out my books, which explore these topics and more in detail.

Glossary of Terms

Accreditation – a process of officially recognizing a person or training program as having necessary qualifications to perform a particular service

Core competencies – a combination of knowledge and technical capabilities that produces results within a given business context

Executive coaching – the defined, professional relationship between a trained coach and client, with goals that typically include enhancement of the client’s leadership performance

Generalist coach – a coach whose aptitudes and knowledge may be applied to a wide variety of different fields or industries

International Coach Federation (ICF) – an international, nonprofit organization dedicated to the professional coaching field, as well as development and accreditation of executive coach training programs

Specialist coach – a coach who focuses their practice on businesses within a particular industry or sector, such as finance, technology, or healthcare